Blanka

If you’re a fan of a certain Street Fighter character with green skin and red hair, then Flock! gives you yet another reason to pick up the game (aside from its puzzley awesomeness).

As you can tell from this video from the Capcom blog, Blanka makes a cameo in the game. It looks like he’s doing his beast roll. But you kind of wonder if he’d make a meal out of those sheep …

Anyway, it’s good to see my favorite Street Fighter character getting more play. Ryu, Ken and Chun Li may get all the mainstream love. Not too may people online use Blanka. He’s sort of the red-headed stepchild of the original World Warriors.

From my perspective, he should be in every Capcom game out there regardless of genre or setting. Flock!, the game, comes out on the PC on April 7, Xbox Live Arcade on April 8 and PlayStation Network on April 9.

It’s bittersweet playing Street Fighter IV. On the one hand, it plays like the old-school fighting game replete with characters such as Guile, Chun Li, Ryu and Ken. They’re all done up in beautiful polygons. The stages are lush and carefully crafted.

But at the same time, there’s a twinge of regret because game’s like this no longer exist where they were meant to be. This is the perfect arcade game in a land where the arcade is an endangered species.

It makes one nostalgic for the past. If only that corner arcade survived a year or two longer … but if you can get over that, you’ll realize that Street Fighter IV is a title that not only gives a the series a much-needed face-lift, it also returns to the franchise’s pure base.

Street Fighter IV doesn’t have the parry system that catered to the hard-core crowd nor is it intimidating with its numerous combos. I couldn’t care less about either. The game works for me because it’s familiar with fewer wrinkles to learn. It’s almost as if I’m on equal footing as a majority of players out there.